millions of red apples for us
Due to laziness plus vacation I skimped on making any State of the Yard posts for the last month and a half, but now we're totally back in business. Today's SOTY edition: ALL APPLES ALL THE TIME.
In the last two months, everything grew, and about half the things died. Tomatoes started ripening RIGHT BEFORE I went on vacation, which is kind of annoying, so I brought them around to gatherings and made several plates of tomato-mozzarella-basil stacks, which are delicious. Squash plants are delightfully happy and continuing to grow at the ends, while drying up and wilting from the base. This makes them look like a very slowly moving rootless squash vine, and it's hilarious. Of the 8 mystery squash i planted, it looks like I have two pumpkin vines (with three small pumpkins), 4 butternet squash vines (with about 10 squashes), and 2 some unknown variety (with about 6 squashes). The fruits are yellow with green stripes, and about the size/shape of my fist. Delicata is still my first guess. Eventually I will cut one open and see if that helps clarify things. Potato plants all fell over, like they do, which means I need to go and dig up a bunch of potatoes.
Most of our grass died because of late-season dry spells, which happens every year. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. The all the weed-grass types started growing great, so our lawn, despite not actually needing mowing, looks extra messy.
Things I have done:
In the last two months, everything grew, and about half the things died. Tomatoes started ripening RIGHT BEFORE I went on vacation, which is kind of annoying, so I brought them around to gatherings and made several plates of tomato-mozzarella-basil stacks, which are delicious. Squash plants are delightfully happy and continuing to grow at the ends, while drying up and wilting from the base. This makes them look like a very slowly moving rootless squash vine, and it's hilarious. Of the 8 mystery squash i planted, it looks like I have two pumpkin vines (with three small pumpkins), 4 butternet squash vines (with about 10 squashes), and 2 some unknown variety (with about 6 squashes). The fruits are yellow with green stripes, and about the size/shape of my fist. Delicata is still my first guess. Eventually I will cut one open and see if that helps clarify things. Potato plants all fell over, like they do, which means I need to go and dig up a bunch of potatoes.
Most of our grass died because of late-season dry spells, which happens every year. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. The all the weed-grass types started growing great, so our lawn, despite not actually needing mowing, looks extra messy.
Things I have done:
- APPLES. Last weekend I made the whole house pick up two week's worth of windfall apples, to their great complaint. It took about 30 minutes, and I got maybe 100 lbs of composted stuff and 10 lbs of usable apple out of it. Those went into crockpot sauce, muffins, and a cake. I have about 6 more lbs ready to be chopped tonight, which might be another cake.
- SIDEWALK. I finally picked a period of time to work on this project (the next two weeks), did all my research, bought materials, made people vote on designs, started digging up the lawn, and tonight I'm hoping to put in a good start.
- Weeded/cleaned out the lily patches, partially in prep for digging up half of that area and partially because I could. It looks much better now, and can be mostly ignored until spring, now.
- APPLES. Time to explore more recipes, maybe borrow a dehydrator, can up a bunch of sauce, and invite people over to pick what they want. Last week I saw an old guy I'd never seen before wandering around my front yard picking up apples off the ground. I stepped outside and told him to take all he wanted and showed where I thought the best selection was. Maybe he'll come back.
- SIDEWALK. Yeah, this is intimidating but hopefully will be fun. Last night while shopping I ran into a neighbor-down-the-street, and she commented on our house lights, saying "I love our street because of YOUR HOUSE!" which was super awwww. Hopefully the new sidewalk will get similar compliments.
- Trim blueberries bushes because they are way overgrown and annoying.
- Harvest all the things including maybe drying some herbs or possibly trying to move some of them indoors before it freezes. Some of it will just die, though. Anybody want an avocado tree (or five)?